Chapter 14
Rowan
Once the yawning starts in earnest, we call it a night, bringing a couple of heavy candles with us as we take turns in the bathroom. Me first, then him. And I’m just crawling into my side of the bed when that rolling thunder turns to a bone-jarring boom I feel all the way through me.
Jason steps into the doorway, toothbrush in hand. Casual. Easy. A bit of paste in the corner of his mouth. “You okay?”
Forcing my fingers to release the sheet I’ve just clutched to my chest, I give him the brightest smile I can muster. “Absolutely.” Then, trying again, this time without the wheeze in my words, I add, “What would possibly make you think I wouldn’t be?”
His laugh is little more than a huff of breath and slight hitch of his lips. But even in the candlelight, I can see it there in his eyes.
It’s nice.
Flashing a wink, he pops the brush back in his mouth and finishes up. He snuffs the candles and climbs in beside me just as another crash rattles the world around us.
“Think your teammates are having as much fun as we are?” I ask in the darkness.
I swear, I can almost hear him smiling. Which makes me smile too.
“No idea what they’re up to right now, but as of this afternoon…” The bed shifts, dipping hard enough that I start to roll into him.
Laughing, I put my hand out to brace myself, but instead of meeting the mattress I end up with a handful of—
“Oh God!” I yank my hand back like it’s on fire.
“Whoa there, handsy lady,” he chides, with this deep laugh as he shifts again, bouncing the bed enough for me to realize just how careful he must have been to this point.
“Sorry, sorry!” And because I have to ask, “Was that…”
“Yes. The rumors are true. My hockey ass is the stuff of legend.” And then, before I can respond, he’s propped a pillow against the headboard and is holding his phone in front of us as it powers on.
“Your phone still has a charge?” I gasp, forgetting about the way my hand is still tingling from contact with what was a truly legendary ass, or how that fizz of sensation seems to have migrated to my belly.
“Enough to show you this. Scoot up here.”
I’m too excited by the prospect of a peek at technology to do anything but pull up my pillow and settle in beside him as he navigates through his photos.
I want to slow him down, look at the pictures he’s taken and see what he sees.
Who he spends time with and what he thinks is worth saving.
But there’s something he wants to show me, and according to his phone, he’s using the last four percent of his battery to do it.
“So like I said, I don’t know what they’re up to now, but here’s what they got up to after they left. Lattner is the younger guy from yesterday.”
“Called me a stripper. Baby face with the man-bun. Boy Bun.”
I look down at the messaging thread, or maybe these are screenshots saved for posterity.
Lattner
How many bee stings are too many?
“Oh, that can’t be good,” I whisper, following the path of Jason’s thick finger down the feed.
“Just wait.”
Wexler
NOT asking for a friend
Vaughn
I’ll check with Natalie
“Wexler was the guy with the mop of dark hair. He was with me at the funeral. And Vaughn’s this grouchy marshmallow married to Coach Baxter’s sister. She’s a physical therapist.”
Rux
How many stings are we talking?
“Our captain.”
Vaughn
She says if you have to ask, it’s too many
He pauses, and I glance at him.
“Before I show you these, just know he’s okay.”
“I need a warning?”
Another gruff rumble. More of that fizzy belly feeling.
He scrolls to the next screenshot.
“No!” I rear back with a gasp. “That is definitely too many bee stings.”
Half the team replies with variations on the word “No” and horrified, puking emojis.
O’Brien
Whoa
Wade
Holy shit
Rux
I’m calling Doc
Boomer
DUDE, WTF OMG! Call Doc!
Nichols
Wex needs to suck the venom out! You’ll be Bee Bros!
Diesel
That’s not a thing
Rux
Not a thing. Do not suck him!
Jason’s shoulders are quaking with his laughter, so I know this kid must be okay.
And then Huska is sharing a picture of Wexler sitting on the edge of the nursing station, chatting up some bored-looking woman in pink scrubs. Then chatting up a tired-looking woman in blue scrubs. A confused-looking woman in black scrubs. A security guard with her hand on her gun.
“Oh my.”
“Yeah, not so many Slayers fans up here. If the guys were in Chicago, Wexler wouldn’t be able to cross the street without someone trying to pick him up. I’ve seen it.”
The next image is Jason looking devastating in a tux, smiling at the camera from some kind of red-carpet event.
He starts to scroll past, but I cover his hand with mine before he can swipe the image away. “What’s this, handsome?”
He swallows. “Agent sent this from an event last month. I don’t have any more screenshots from the bee thing, but there was a text from Huska letting me know the rookie— Baby Bun —was doing well.”
I pull my hand away, ignoring the low charge beneath my skin. “Show me more?”
He nods. The next one is another screenshot of an email from someone inviting him to work from home for up to one hundred dollars an hour.
“Considering a career change?” I tease.
“Just giving my agent shit. He was trying to get me to sign on to some endorsement I wasn’t so sure about, and I sent this to him.”
It’s a playful side of this man I’d forgotten about before today. But one I’m hoping I get to see more of.
“Next, please.”
Jason
Nice.
It’s the first thing to creep into my slow-stirring consciousness as I take a deep breath, filling my lungs with the subtle scent of something amazing, something I want more of. I start to gather the source of—
Wait.
My eyes blink open, just in time to hear Rowan’s breath catch… against my chest.
Where her head is currently tucked.
With her hair spilling over my shoulder.
My arm wrapped around her back.
Her soft curves pressed into my side.
And a tangled limbs situation so intimate that I can feel the heat of her against my thigh.
Shit.
I say a silent prayer that I can make it out of this bed without the silky perfection of her left leg shifting even an inch higher. Because she’s that close to my dick, and he is an early riser.
Oh, shit.
I peer down and meet Rowan’s wide eyes for one heart-stopping beat… before she scrunches them shut.
“Oh my God, I’m totally on top of you,” she gasps, climbing out of bed with a strained laugh and quick apology.
Rubbing my hand over my stubble-rough jaw, I shake my head. “No worries. Temps dropped and we got a little chilly, is all.”
“Yeah. Okay. Thank you.”
Even in the muted morning light with a burn of embarrassment darkening her cheeks, she’s painfully beautiful.
She stretches her arms wide, and my mouth goes dry at the way her T-shirt pulls across the swells of her— Shit, don’t look.
Too late.
Memory stored in the forever files.
I swing my legs over the side of the bed so my back is to her, and my morning wood is mostly contained so long as she doesn’t look directly at me.
I let her use the bathroom first, using the time to try and get my head right, and then go in when she’s through.
Arms braced against the wall above the sink, I glare into the mirror.
“Get a grip, man. You fucking know better.”
I do. But damn, waking to Rowan in my arms?
I try to shake it off. Try to tell my unruly cock to settle down, because the switches this SNAFU has flipped are ones I swore I was over.
Rowan isn’t for me. She never has been.
And even if there is some small reciprocal attraction from her end, it doesn’t matter.
She’s not staying. The minute I give her the documentation to prove this place is mine, her reasons for being here blink out of existence.
There won’t be anything she needs to protect or preserve for my father, just an evolving awkwardness when I start legal action against her mom.
I know all this.
So what the hell is wrong with me? Because five minutes ago, none of it mattered.
If Rowan had moved so much as a breath in my direction instead of backing off me, if she so much as hinted that she wanted the same kind of bad decision that has been intermittently running through my mind since I was sixteen, I would have grabbed her by the back of her neck and dragged her beneath me in a blink.
My tongue would have been in her mouth, my hands pulling her up and into me as I ground down, giving her a taste of what was coming next.
She could have told me she was bored and just killing time. But so long as she whispered it with her lips against my ear or neck or mouth— anywhere —I wouldn’t have been able to stop.
I would have kissed her harder, devoured the taste of her. The sounds she made.
Aww, hell. And now I’m thinking about what she would sound like when I sank into her.
My palm smacks the wall. “Snap out of it, asshole.”
My body is screaming for relief, my mind rapid-firing ways to get it faster than I can defend against.
But no way am I taking this situation in hand.
I might not be able to stop myself from thinking about Rowan, but I can sure as hell keep myself from acting.
My life is built on discipline. It’s how I’ve gotten to the top of my game. How I’ve gotten to one of the top teams in the league. And it’s how I’m going to get through the next two days without making some epically stupid decisions.